Student accused of cheating on Facebook faces expulsion hearing

[Lisa]

A first-year student at Ryerson University in Toronto who is accused of cheating by helping run a Facebook study group will go before an expulsion hearing Tuesday.
Chris Avenir, an 18-year-old studying computer engineering, will fight the charges at the engineering faculty appeals committee. He faces one count of academic misconduct for helping to organize the group, and another 146 counts for every student who used the group.

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I feel the University is going overboard with this and perhaps singling out this particular student. In the article above the University says it needs to ensure that the students are doing their own homework. To me, this is no different then handing off your notes to someone which many University students have done for years. Hell, some don't even attend the classes and just get the notes all year!

What do you all think?

 

[Andrew Green]

Students should study alone, none of this working together, team work, tree loving hippie nonsense!

While it is no different then a real life study group, part of me suspects that there might be more involved here then the article is stating. But then again, administrators seem to do dumb things that make the news fairly regullarly.

 

[jks9199]

There are two ways I see that this might have been cheating. The first is if the group & site allowed students to simply copy the homework assignments without working the problems themselves, especially if it was in violation of a prohibition on group work. But that resolves itself come test day...

The second is if students were posting up test questions or answers so that other students could get a head start.

The thing is -- in both cases, these were things that could just as easily have been done in a more traditional study group.

I'd say the school should have a strong burden of showing that the student was facilitating cheating.

 

[MA-Caver]

Hmm, cheating? Organizing a study group on line? Is that any different than meeting in the cafeteria or library or somewhere on/off campus to learn how to work with people and get different insights/views/ideas on a particular subject?
Would the universities prefer this instead?

 

[Empty Hands]

Wow, that dude on the bottom with the flannel is just blatant. I've proctored many large test groups before, and never seen anything so obvious.

 

[punisher73]

Assuming that JKS9199 is right and there was posting of the test questions or homework assignments, I think the biggest difference would be the number of students involved. How many people are in most study groups? This one had 146 students, so IF the school does have proof that there was cheating involved, I think they should still punish all of those involved in the cheating and not just single out this one kid who may/may not have knowledge that it was going on.

Just for clarification, JKS offered his opinion on what he thought might constitute cheating. He did not say that this IS what happened.